Comment by infecto
13 hours ago
I don’t think it’s ironic and my point was not the act of labeling itself but more of how America has become a brigading culture. Free speech should be protected, even for things that we know are wrong but we have this decay of the internet and culture where you are either with someone or against them.
But that's my point: what you call "brigading" is other people using their free speech in a way you don't like.
I think we are talking past each other a bit.
I am not objecting to people expressing disagreement or labeling as an abstract exercise of free speech. I am pointing to a pattern that has become common online where disagreement quickly turns into coordinated pile-ons, identity assignment, and social signaling rather than substantive engagement with the argument itself.
Free speech protects the right to do that, but it does not mean the behavior is healthy or productive. When discourse collapses into binary alignment where nuance is treated as hostility, it discourages honest participation and pushes people toward silence or extremes.
So yes, others are exercising free speech. My concern is about the cultural outcome of how that speech is increasingly used, not whether it is permitted.
Increasingly society in America is either you are with us or not and at least for me my view of the world is more nuanced and day to day.
> I am pointing to a pattern that has become common online where disagreement quickly turns into coordinated pile-ons, identity assignment, and social signaling rather than substantive engagement with the argument itself.
It's easy to fall prey to the fallacy that disagreement with you means the disagreers are failing to engage substantively to the topic, and are simply "social signaling".
It's easy to dismiss many people disagreeing with you as a "coordinated pile on".
In my experience, these accusations are usually a result of the "piled on"'s failure to understand and consider the others' perspective, and their unwillingness to change their mind.
Not to say that they must understand and consider others' perspectives, or that they must be willing to change their mind either! But engaging with a society means facing social pressure to conform with social norms. There's always not engaging with society in any meaningful way, as an option.
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